The Search For ‘1-0’

STAYTON, Ore.– With Stayton Football just days away from their season opener versus Estacada on the road, the excitement is there, it’s building already during Monday’s practice.

“I’m so excited, I’ve been waiting all summer for this,” said Ryan Beresford. “We’re drilling hard to get to this point finally.”

A few days ago, the Eagles were facing some tough competition in Lebanon at the 5A level and Thurston from the 6A Level.

But lessons were learned in the process of the jamboree as the Young Eagles look to improve over the coming days for the Rangers.

“Just the speed, angles, size,” said Head Coach Andy Campbell. “When you see 5A’s and 6A’s, experience shows. Summer training shows. We worked our tails off and you know what happens, the teams like that is that they’ve been doing that forever and they got twice as many kids that do it.

“So I wanted to see what our kids are going to battle when we are the underdog going in and we played well, we played hard, we played tough, we played fast. We just have to get used to angles.”

But Campbell knows that this experience is beneficial for his team for the season ahead.

“We are just an inexperienced team right now with returning two starters offensively and three or four defensively guys who saw some time,” said Campbell. “Other than that our younger kids are (getting their) first varsity action was against 6A seniors. We’ll take that going into the season.”

Seth Daliey (yellow undershirt) running through a play with Brayden Neuharth throwing a block for him (Picture By Jeremy McDonald)

For senior running back Seth Dailey, through the tough competition, he liked how his young squad performed Friday night in Lebanon.

“I think we did well, we worked hard,” said Dailey. “I think we have a big future in Stayton football.”

Now that they’ve seen live action, tough or not, momentum is there.

And though Beresford didn’t play in the scrimmage due to an elbow issue, but is expected to play this Friday against Estacada, the Tight End/Outside Linebacker knows his team is ready for the season to start.

“I think we just have to keep working hard because we got there, we saw something we haven’t seen before,” said Beresford. “A lot bigger people, a lot more skill people too and I thought we brought it well for first time hitting other people.”

As practice wraps up with seven unique sprints to pay their debts for penalties in the scrimmage, Campbell preaches that half the team’s after Friday will be undefeated, the other, winless.

And the message to his team was simple:

“1-0,” said Dailey.

They’ll have a chance for ‘1-0’, 7pm at Estacada High School in Estacada.

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